I took my own Biographical Sketch of Harry Chase and asked ChatGPT to rewrite it in the style of JRR Tolkien, this was the result:

The Chronicle of Harry Chase, Painter of the Sea

Of His Birth and the Line of His Fathers

In the year 1853, when the snows yet lay upon the Green Mountains of the North, was born Henry Seymour Chase the Younger, whom men called Harry, son of Henry the Healer and Sally of the House of Haskell. From a long line of physicians he came, for his sires for five generations were masters in the arts of bone and sinew. Yet in him arose no love of physic, nor desire to labor at the plough, for within his breast burned another fire: the longing for vision and the mastery of the hand.

And though his forefathers wielded instruments of healing, he would wield the brush, to heal the spirit with beauty.

Of His Youth and Awakening

When he was yet a child of four winters, his father removed the household to the wide plains of Iowa, there to till the soil and to tend the folk as a healer of teeth and bone. In that place the boy grew amid fields and rivers, and often he sat with pen and paper, copying the images of far-off marvels shown in Harper’s Weekly.

But the yearning in his heart was for greater things. In time his family came to the city of St. Louis, by the waters of the Mississippi, and there Harry beheld for the first time the fellowship of painters and the bustle of a rising art. Among them he found James Reeve Stuart, who had studied in distant Munich, and from his lips Harry heard tidings of the Royal Bavarian Academy, where masters of renown held high the lamp of learning.

Thus was the fire of desire enkindled in him beyond all quenching.

Of His Cry to His Father

When he was seventeen years of age he departed to New York and entered the National Academy of Design, sitting at the feet of Lemuel Wilmarth, who also had learned in Munich. But his heart grew restless, for the tales of Europe called to him with the voice of destiny.

Returning to St. Louis, he came before his father, and with fervor he spoke, saying:

“Father, no other path shall I walk. Neither medicine nor farm shall hold me. To Europe I must go! For only there shall the fire within me find its shaping.”

And though his sire was slow to yield, at last he consented.

Of His Journey Beyond the Sea

In the summer of 1872 Harry crossed the great waters, being but nineteen years of age, in the company of William Merritt Chase, a fellow of kindred spirit (though not of blood). And together they came to Munich, where Harry dwelt long under the rule of Wilhelm von Kaulbach and other mighty teachers of that realm.

There he learned the crafts of the hand, and he journeyed far abroad: to the isles of Britain, the coasts of the North, the lagunes of Venice, and the wind-swept Netherlands. Ever he studied the face of the Sea, which thenceforth became the chief muse of his heart, as though some deep kinship bound him to her rolling waters.

Of His Triumphs and His Bride

When four years had passed he returned to his homeland, bearing a great treasury of painted works. These he set forth in St. Louis, and all the people marveled; and every canvas was taken up by eager hands, so that “Harry Chase Fever” spread among them. Thus did he win great renown.

Soon after he wedded Laura Emeline Eames, whom he loved, and she was called Emma. She was a maiden of learning, who desired to be an authoress, and together they fared once more across the sea, to dwell in Paris and The Hague.

In Paris he sat at the feet of Paul Soyer, and in The Hague he learned of Mesdag, the great mariner-painter of that land. Among the Dutch masters Harry was welcomed as a brother, and his works were set beside theirs in the Salon of Paris, which was the most exalted hall of art in the world.

Of His Rising Fame

In time he returned to the New World, and his star rose ever higher. He sailed upon his own ship, the Bonnie, and from her deck he painted the harbors and coasts of the Eastern Seas. In New York, the mightiest of the cities of the Republic, his name was praised, and the lords of wealth contended for his works, which were taken as swiftly as they left his hand.

He was made Associate of the National Academy of Design, and in the year 1885 he was awarded the Hallgarten Prize, being the greatest honor given to a painter of his age. He was chosen also as Vice President of the Salmagundi Sketch Club. He was then but two and thirty years, yet already he stood among the foremost masters of his people.

Of the Shadow and the Fading of the Light

But lo! when his glory seemed fullest, a shadow crept upon him. For in that same year, after he had sailed long upon the seas, he was stricken by a secret malady. His body failed, and worse still, his mind was troubled with strange visions and fell thoughts.

He was borne to the House of Healing at Poughkeepsie, but no remedy availed. Thereafter his kin removed him to the mountains of Tennessee, where they placed him under the care of one without lore. There for four years he lingered, his flame burning low, sometimes flickering with hope, but ever failing.

At last, on the first day of October in the year 1889, his spirit passed away. He was but six and thirty years of age. And thus the light of Harry Chase was quenched in the shadows of madness and death.

Of His Memory in Later Days

Harry Chase was laid in Bellefontaine in St. Louis, beneath the trees of Missouri, where his wife Emma and his two children mourned him. His name, once bright as a star in the firmament of the Gilded Age, grew dim with passing years, until few remembered him.

Yet his works endure, and in them the Sea yet speaks: the roll of her waters, the gleam of her horizons, the strength of her winds. They remain as tokens of what might have been, had his life not been cut short.

And so the loremasters say:

“In the days of the Gilded Age there was a mariner of canvas, whose brush was as a helm upon the waters of light. Swift was his voyage, bright his flame, but soon was it quenched. And his name was Harry Chase, the Painter of the Sea.”